The Chinese road to modernization is a detour from the strict ideology of Mao Tse-tung. The little red book has been replaced by a sharpened pencil and balanced ledger. Instead of Red Guards, China is training auditors -- 560,000 of them within the next three to four years.

A delegation of six auditors from the Chinese Ministry of Coal visited Orlando last week for a tour of the Orlando Utility Commission's coal-fired plant and three days of seminars and training at the Institute of Internal Auditors, an international organization with headquarters in Altamonte Springs.

Stanley C. Gross, institute president, said that under the new Chinese constitution all businesses must have internal auditing. In the past, Gross said, auditing was done by the government to assure that taxes were collected. Now the government wants assurances that businesses are operating efficiently and profitably.

Founded in 1941, the non-profit professional association provides educational programs to internal auditors in more than 100 industries in the United States and 34 countries.

Fei Wenzhong, deputy director of the Ministry of Coal's audit department, said training internal auditors fits into the Chinese leadership's program calling for modernization in technology, manufacturing and farming.

Now, independent auditors will report to a national auditing agency on how efficiently a particular enterprise is producing and distributing its goods or service. A national audit agency headed by an auditor general was established in 1983. At that time the audit agency had 250 members but the present plan calls for 560,000 auditors in Chinese industry.

Wenzhong and Gross agreed that accounting principles are universal, whether in China or the West. The only differences are the few tricks of the trade that come from this country's long tradition in accounting, Gross said.

For example, Chinese auditors might take the long way to arrive at a sampling, sometimes handpicking 10 percent of the items on a ledger. But a computerized statistical sampling using mathematical principles can reduce the number of that sampling considerably and arrive at a more accurate conclusion, Gross said.

At one seminar last week, the Chinese delegation was offered a stack of accounting textbooks, suitable for an MBA student.

Said Wenzhong: ''We intend to have them translated. We have learned from our American friends from books and from experience.''

The next move for the institute is to open a chapter in China, Gross said. It would be the first for the institute in a communist country.

China's recent experiment with private enterprise has made accounting a new growth industry. During the past three years, 22 accounting or consulting firms have been formed in 19 cities.

In 1980 the Accounting Society of China was formed and there are 400 accountancy societies and more than 60 journals published on the subject, according to figures supplied by the Institute of Internal Auditors.

Despite the new-found interest in accountancy, a fifth of China's enterprises posted losses in 1983.

Speaking through an interpreter, Wenzhong said internal auditing and private enterprise are part of China's independent thinking. ''This is the main way for China now.''